Part of my work as a professor is to observe other professors teaching in the dual enrollment environment. I’m often assigned locations on the fringes of the sprawl where people have moved to create/recreate idealized versions of what they think utopia should look like. In fact, on the way to the school today I saw a personalized license plate that read ‘Lvnnoz’. The thought that some dusty part of Arizona on the edge of a recently opened freeway built in the shadow of a retired military base could be Oz is, well, silly. That being said, that is being done.
What I notice most about these makeshift Oz’s are the homogeneity of the space (mostly white with a smattering of Asian) and the prevalence of corporate run ‘public’ schools. I’m in one such school as I speak, though it is of a smaller corporate footprint than most. Within that are high-standards built around structures that favor a particular type of teaching and learning meant to simulate AP standards in all classes. In other words, these students are treated like they are in specialized high schools, and every high school is treated like a specialized high school when none really really are.
As I watch I am watched. These students are curious about me—a black man sent in to observe them and the environment they’ve had created and have created for themselves in a false utopia at the edge of the desert. I am, as an observer, an intruder and that makes them curious. I’m curious. How these lives are so different than my own only 10 miles away is interesting. It reminds me of New York in a way, where the differences are far more condensed, but also far more disparate. Here, we are dancing through the many different shades of middle class and going nowhere.
Some Thoughts:
- Honestly, just being outside of the normal drone of my daily space was so invigorating that, as you can see, even the blog is impacted in a positive way. Dang. I need to get out more…